A Watched Pot: addendum

I have a friend who just can't let a surprise be. When she was dating her now husband, he flew out to surprise her for some special occasion. She suspected he might try to surprise her and kept asking him questions and in my opinion sucking all of the joy out of the point of a surprise visit. But I'm a person who derives a majority of my delight in gifts of presence or presents in the surprise. I think I'm pretty hard to surprise so it takes a certain amount of commitment and effort to surprise me. I think that's what I love the most. Anyone can put a bow on something and give it to you-they don't even have to like you to do it. But to surprise a person takes planning and to me, that indicates some intangible measure of how much I matter. In the case of this phantom would-be soulmate whose existence I can't confirm, I guess I'm hoping I matter enough to God for him to surprise me.

So I wrote before about the torture of watching the pot and that is still true. The good news silver lining of watched pots is deep down, even while I despair, I'm watching them because I expect they will boil. That optimism is often treated to some pretty brutal pessimism and leaden despair but one still hopes for a surprise. I'm ruining the surprise for myself though, because every time I leave the house, I wonder if this might be the day he comes into my life. I feel like I'm trying to figure out the whodunit during the first scene of the film instead of letting the plot unfold and getting invested in the characters. I'm optimistic about it right now, feeling like he could literally be around the corner and I'm excited to meet him with the certainty of a woman who looks forward to meeting the child she is carrying; that he exists isn't the question, it's when he's coming that is unknown. It is getting kind of annoying because I have this inner monologue that keeps saying "is that him?" "ooh, do you think you'll meet him there?" "what if because you went this way instead of that way, you end up meeting him?" It's really f-ing irritating. Maybe I'm ovulating. I should track my hope on a calendar, see if my hope and despair line up with my cycle.

Or not. Wouldn't want my mood swing ovulation calendar lying around if/when Mr. Soulmate shows up.